Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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LuckyR wrote: May 12th, 2018, 1:28 am
Greta wrote: May 11th, 2018, 5:58 pm Fair point about antiquity, Lucky, but I think you will find that living conditions for the most bloodthirsty societies were crowded, smelly and dangerous, not ideal for fostering neighbourly love and a great deal of homelessness due to lack of social welfare.

Bring in a crowd and you lower the value of human life, noting that a "crowd" is not a number but something that is felt.
Well if you mean that even though the population is increasing, that "crowdedness" is decreasing, then I agree with you. And your conclusions.
People are buying apartments in New York that are so small they do not have anything you could call a kitchen. Despite that their cost is way beyond the dreams of many people.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Fair point. At the sharp end of overpopulation, mod cons and systems aren't enough. The people cages of Hong Kong (and probably many places that are less open) are quite horrifyingly small, crowded and dangerous.
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Thrylix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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LuckyR wrote: May 9th, 2018, 12:49 pm
Greta wrote: May 9th, 2018, 2:30 am
Exactly. Protection of self, family, assets, resources and territory are not the issue. When I was young I sometimes killed ants pointlessly. It's hard to even understand why - it was certainly in part abuse of empowerment, no doubt spurred by my own sense of disempowerment. In short, bullying. It was also curiosity - to see how they reacted. With larger insects, such cruelty would seem too personal, but ants were small enough not to make a mark on my conscience. After all, almost every person who is not a Jain Buddhist or an admirer accepts that ants are trodden on by larger animals all the time. Still, today the idea turns me right off.

It's not uncommon for people to catch stray Christmas beetles, spiders or moths that blunder into a home to be released outside (not so much cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes for obvious reasons). While wholesale destruction of invasive ant trails is often necessary for those living near nests, I am curious to know how many will go to the trouble to catch and release with a single stray ant? You must evict her or she'll call her friends and start a party in your home, and it's so simple to wipe them up like a piece of mobile dirt. So I try to catch them - which still has a pretty high mortality rate due to clumsiness. Some would say that's a waste of energy - that one would ideally direct their energies into less trivial pursuits, but that could be said about much that we do.

Sometimes when I do that I feel like a bit of a weirdo, even though it's just trying to be being humane to a weaker animal at my mercy.

Edit: erroneous word
Not a weirdo. There is no reason to snuff out a life for no reason at all or boredom at best. True for most the threshold is low, perhaps incredibly low. If there is NO threshold for bugs, perhaps there isn't one for pets, or for humans, since it is all a question of gradation.
Well that's kind of a tautology. Sure, there's no reason to snuff out a life for no reason at all. It's true of course, but I think the more salient question is "Should you need a reason to snuff out a life?" Some will of course say you need a good reason to justify doing that. And I imagine this holds true among various other cultures, such as jains. I'm sure you can surmise what my personal stance, considering that I've admitted I purposely crush lifeforms that are smaller than me all the time. Sometimes because they're annoying and sometimes just because I think stepping on them is funny. The only caveat for me to treat bugs like dirt (which, admittedly, I do), is that the lifeform has to be pretty insignificant compared to myself.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Well, that's one way of operating. It does raise the taboo question that killing appears to be something that many animals, including humans, enjoy. The power of dominance, of snuffing out a life of a lesser being seems to give a "happy hormones" kick in all carnivorous or omnivorous animals. The pleasure appears to be entwined with the desire to consume.

This is at odds with the social rules we make so as to order a civil society and we are mostly now conditioned enough to find the idea of sating your hunger by dominating, slaughtering and cooking up your neighbour abhorrent. From there, it depends on where your empathy lies. For many westerners the abhorrence of killing and eating humans extends to companion animals like dogs and cats, while those in parts of east have no issue with it.

So at what point do we not empathise? Bugs? Reptiles? Mammals? The poor? "Our kind of people?".

The issue I have with killing bugs is the same issue I have with harming the weak who depend on our mercy, just because one can. It's bullying. Crocodiles and vipers command far more respect, yet they are hardly morally more worthy than less vicious species that are easy to push around.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Greta: So at what point do we not empathise? Bugs? Reptiles? Mammals? The poor? "Our kind of people?"
Empathy is not something one should feel sanguine about not having. Insensitivity may be the root of all evil. Empathy can be cultivated and developed but it should be obvious that you will not do so by causing needless suffering to other living creatures, in fact you reduce your aptitude for empathy when you do so.

Can one be too empathetic? I don't think so, anymore than one can be too loving. Of course practicing empathy in the mutual eating society of Nature can be difficult.
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Felix wrote: May 18th, 2018, 1:19 pmCan one be too empathetic? I don't think so, anymore than one can be too loving. Of course practicing empathy in the mutual eating society of Nature can be difficult.
In terms of survival, yes, one can be too empathetic, or loving. Humanity'd morality is not, and has not been shaped by scholars with ideas around ethics but by those with weapons. We have adopted the ideologies of the victors as losers' memes fade into history.

During quiet times when survival is not at stake, some of the thinkers joined the dots and appreciated that food animals have a fairly sophisticated level of internality. However, once peace is lost, crops destroyed, and the only option for families to be healthy is to kill animals, then the empathy is withdrawn.

Humans, like other social predators, have the capability to turn off the empathy and care they give to other pack members during the hunt. At no point is the prey empathised with because the predator that hesitates is the predator that is out-competed by predators without hesitation.

The difference is that humans tend to specialise, and seemingly the specilisation is not limited to vocation and function, but also attitude. So some people are especially "more predator/less nurturer" and vice versa. You could probably plot it on a Bell Curve.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Well, like I said, practicing empathy is not easy in the mutual eating society, but one can endeavor to inflict the least amount of pain and suffering needed to survive, i.e., when it is absolutely necessary to take a life, to make that process as quick and painless as possible. And there are states of consciousness that make one's own physical survival seem utterly trivial and nothing to grieve about.
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Felix, as far as I know, the only states that make death seem trivial are extreme sickness, warfare, depression and Samadhi. Three are undesirable and one is almost unattainable.
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Felix wrote: May 19th, 2018, 12:48 am Well, like I said, practicing empathy is not easy in the mutual eating society, but one can endeavor to inflict the least amount of pain and suffering needed to survive, i.e., when it is absolutely necessary to take a life, to make that process as quick and painless as possible. And there are states of consciousness that make one's own physical survival seem utterly trivial and nothing to grieve about.
I think you are conflating two things; taking a life and pain and suffering.

There is nothing more quick and painless than being stomped on by a giant foot; this will immediately relieve the bug of its pain. In the same way a domesticated animal reared for its meat will enjoy a far more pain free life than one facing the vicissitudes of natures environment; red in tooth and claw.
Farmers know that stock rearing is best the result of careful management.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Felix, as far as I know, the only states that make death seem trivial are extreme sickness, warfare, depression and Samadhi. Three are undesirable and one is almost unattainable.
So-called Samadhi is a perspective that is always available but one must leave the habitual survival based mode of awareness to recognize it, which will not be easy if you spend every waking moment there.
In the same way a domesticated animal reared for its meat will enjoy a far more pain free life than one facing the vicissitudes of natures environment; red in tooth and claw.
That would of course depend on how it is raised, the vicissitudes of Nature can be absolutely delightful compared to the vicissitudes of a factory farm.
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Thrylix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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ThomasHobbes wrote: May 19th, 2018, 6:35 am
Felix wrote: May 19th, 2018, 12:48 am Well, like I said, practicing empathy is not easy in the mutual eating society, but one can endeavor to inflict the least amount of pain and suffering needed to survive, i.e., when it is absolutely necessary to take a life, to make that process as quick and painless as possible. And there are states of consciousness that make one's own physical survival seem utterly trivial and nothing to grieve about.
I think you are conflating two things; taking a life and pain and suffering.

There is nothing more quick and painless than being stomped on by a giant foot; this will immediately relieve the bug of its pain. In the same way a domesticated animal reared for its meat will enjoy a far more pain free life than one facing the vicissitudes of natures environment...
Well, thinking more it might not be that painless. As I mentioned in my original post when I demolished the anthill and sat down I remember a large number of ants were pressed into my muddy sneaker treads amusingly still alive and moving, as is wont to happen when your treads are alI patterned and grooved as so:

Image
Image

Usually they're full of thick patches of mud from running competitively. So, not sure death is always quick. Not saying I give a damn about what bugs experience, given that I purposely step on them for no reason all the time. Like I said before, the smell of my feet would probably be enough to kill them. If it could be proved experience pain or fear, I'm pretty sure I'd still be stepping on them if for no other reason than its funny.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Thrylix wrote: May 25th, 2018, 4:01 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: May 19th, 2018, 6:35 am

I think you are conflating two things; taking a life and pain and suffering.

There is nothing more quick and painless than being stomped on by a giant foot; this will immediately relieve the bug of its pain. In the same way a domesticated animal reared for its meat will enjoy a far more pain free life than one facing the vicissitudes of natures environment...
Well, thinking more it might not be that painless. As I mentioned in my original post when I demolished the anthill and sat down I remember a large number of ants were pressed into my muddy sneaker treads amusingly still alive and moving, as is wont to happen when your treads are alI patterned and grooved as so:

Image
Image

Usually they're full of thick patches of mud from running competitively. So, not sure death is always quick. Not saying I give a damn about what bugs experience, given that I purposely step on them for no reason all the time. Like I said before, the smell of my feet would probably be enough to kill them. If it could be proved experience pain or fear, I'm pretty sure I'd still be stepping on them if for no other reason than its funny.
Perhaps you should have done a better job in the first place?
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Felix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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ThomasHobbes wrote: There is nothing more quick and painless than being stomped on by a giant foot
When the 60 foot tall extraterrestrials arrive, I will be sure and tell them that this is your preferred form of termination.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Felix wrote: May 19th, 2018, 1:17 pm
Felix, as far as I know, the only states that make death seem trivial are extreme sickness, warfare, depression and Samadhi. Three are undesirable and one is almost unattainable.
So-called Samadhi is a perspective that is always available but one must leave the habitual survival based mode of awareness to recognize it, which will not be easy if you spend every waking moment there.
Yes, so death remains very non trivial!
Felix wrote:
In the same way a domesticated animal reared for its meat will enjoy a far more pain free life than one facing the vicissitudes of natures environment; red in tooth and claw.
That would of course depend on how it is raised, the vicissitudes of Nature can be absolutely delightful compared to the vicissitudes of a factory farm.
True. The free range animals are usually better off but no one needs me to say how horrific factory farms are. I expect that people of the future will see the practice in roughly the same light as slavery and torture. History is replete with examples of how, when horrors are well accepted in a society, many good people will simply switch off their critical faculties, trusting that the organisers know what they are doing and not too much harm is being done.

It's one of the things I like about progress, the increasing de-objectification of nature that comes with greater understanding, but that can only become widespread when survival is not too threatened, which is a bit of an issue at present. The greater the fear, the more one's world becomes populated with objects.
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Thrylix
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Re: Do you think stepping on bugs is right or wrong- why?

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Felix wrote: May 29th, 2018, 5:33 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: There is nothing more quick and painless than being stomped on by a giant foot
When the 60 foot tall extraterrestrials arrive, I will be sure and tell them that this is your preferred form of termination.
If a 60 foot tall alien decided he felt like squashing you, what kind of position would you be in to complain? Does Godzilla care about the humans he steps on? Would he be wrong for not giving a damn about what are, essentially, to him, little microbes at his feet who happen to build weird structures but can't even scream loud enough to get his attention?

At that size, I wouldn't care. If I were the giant alien, I know I'd be stepping all over them until they acknowledged me as a god to them. Would that make me a cruel god? Probably - but when you have that much power, who cares? Nobody (or at least, nobody who matters) could find out or punish you.
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